A challenger for the board of selectmen in Avon

Wednesday

Dec 31, 2008 at 12:01 AMDec 31, 2008 at 2:11 AM

For the first time since 2004, an incumbent selectman will face a challenger in April’s annual town elections. Former Finance Committee Chairwoman Cheryl Wilkerson will challenge three-term selectman and board Chairman Francis Hegarty.

Mike Melanson

For the first time since 2004, an incumbent selectman will face a challenger in April’s annual town elections.

Wilkerson, 60, a retired accountant who worked for the state, has pulled and returned nomination papers. Hegarty has pulled papers but has yet to return them, although it's expected he will do so, said Town Clerk-Treasurer V. Jean Kopke.

If elected, Wilkerson said she would “streamline” the town's administrative costs, stating with the “ridiculous” amount she says the town’s selectmen make.

Wilkerson says she’d forego the $5,000 stipend paid to each of the three selectman, saying it’s too much for a town of about 4,100 residents.

She claims that the stipend is more than any other selectman earns in Massachusetts. The Massachusetts Municipal Association could not immediately confirm if Avon selectmen are the highest paid in the state.

In Whitman, with about 14,000 residents, none of the five selectmen are compensated. In West Bridgewater, with about 6,800 residents, each of the three selectmen gets about $3,450 per year.

Avon employs a full-time town administrator and pays him about $80,000 per year, and the selectmen stipends hearken back to the days when there wasn't a professional administrator and selectmen had a more direct role in the daily running of the town government, said Wilkerson.

In the 2008 elections, which featured one contested race for Parks & Recreation commissioner and six unsought offices, more than nine of 10 eligible voters stayed home. Of Avon's 2,888 registered voters, 253, or 8.7-percent, cast ballots.

In the 2005 election, which featured one contested race for the Board of Health, less than 300 voters — about 9 percent — cast ballots.

In 2006, the number dropped to 242. In 2007, just 194, or 7-percent, of the townspeople who are eligible to vote actually did so.

"Apathy is the number 1 issue," said Wilkerson.

She said residents usually stay away from the polls and meetings, unless there's a property tax override or school issue or a special interest like a water problem on a street to bring them out.

“People are so busy and so involved with their lives, that they don't care until their tax bill comes,” she said.

Wilkerson said town departments should no longer fend for themselves and would revive the town's Capital Planning Committee to draft a comprehensive plan of capital improvements to present to residents at town meeting.

“I think the town wants someone new,” she said.

Hegarty declined comment Tuesday, saying it was too early for his campaign to come out officially and that he would make an announcement in the near future.